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Over the years, Bryn had attempted to open them a few times without success, so she didn’t know why she bothered now. Still, she withdrew the newest-looking diary and turned it over in her hands a few times, running her fingers over the engraved initials that belonged to her mother.

S H

Bryn pulled the front cover toward herself, expecting resistance, but was shocked when it opened to her, and she read the small inscription on the inside:

This diary belongs to Sylvi Helvig, Queen of Flame.

May the lights of my life find its contents illuminating.

She almost dropped the diary before reading the inscription a few more times, mind reeling.

Why did it suddenly open to her now? What had changed since she last attempted to open them?

Bryn’s mind whirled with possible answers, but the only thing that had been new since she stole these from her mother’s room was that Maude had left the city and had crossed into the Lamenting Woods and the Kingdom of Rivers.

This made even less sense, she thought, because what did their mother have to do with the Kingdom of Rivers?

Brynn flipped the page to the last entry her mother had been able to write, throat growing thick with emotion:

The whimsical nature the girls have carried since their youth has been completely crushed by Harald.

I look at Bryn, my sweet and funny girl, beginning to harden herself to her world.

Where she picked flowers to weave through her copper curls, she now wears braids so tight I see them hurting her.

She tells me it is because she cannot train with flowers in her hair when she must become a ruthless warrior to serve her kingdom.

When she picks up her shield, her hair will fly into her face if it is not braided back and earn her another bruise from Ulf, who shows no patience when instructing Bryn on how to wield a sword and shield.

I tried to explain to her that shieldmaidens are both fierce and respected warriors who also braided wildflowers into their hair during the spring equinox and summer solstice.

I could see my statement confused her because of the poison Ulf and Harald spew at her day and night.

She is only fourteen, and yet I see her starting down a path that will lead her to nothing but loneliness that stems from living a hateful existence.

Maude spirals further into herself every day.

I worry that she will give up on herself soon.

The beatings she takes from her father when she disobeys or fights back against his rule are slowly ebbing away at her resolve, and the free spirit that has always been as wild as her flaming crimson hair, so much like my own, is crumbling beneath his weight.

She holds a haunted look in her eye, the dark circles beneath them showing me how close she is to giving up.

I don’t know how to help them anymore. I cannot be a barrier between them and Harald for much longer before I am found out. When that day comes, they need to be ready to keep fighting without me.

My life was forfeit long before I came to this kingdom, but I did not anticipate it being so hard to leave my loves behind. My girls are my light, and I weep for the loss they will feel when my time to join Freya in Folkvangr arrives.

I burn small sacrifices to Frigga and Freya every night for guidance, but I fear the gods have abandoned me for the choices I have had to make for my kingdom to survive, for placing that hope in Maude, who has never understood the burden she has had to carry since her conception.

I chose to steer Maude away from her fate, and now, I must face the consequences of these actions by losing the guidance of the gods.

My girls are strong, but no one can hold out forever under the cruelty that is found in this palace.

I believe that they can be a force of nature if they can realize their potential together, but my tongue is tied, and I am unable to do more than bring them together the best I can.

They need to know that they have to believe in each other because no one else can prevail over Harald if they can’t.

Bryn’s tears splashed onto the surface of her mother’s last private thoughts before her death. She wiped fresh tears from her eyes and put the diary down on the floor, gently. Her mother had known she was going to die before they had reached adulthood, but why?

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, the pressure forcing her thoughts into organizing.

She tried to make sense of the things her mother had written down.

It seemed there was a bigger game being played that Bryn was not aware of.

Their mother said she needed to find Maude and reconnect with her somehow under their father’s nose, but again, why?

Bryn found the oldest-looking diary belonging to her mother and stored the rest of them back beneath the floor, floating the stone back into place and pulling the rug over it again.

She placed the diary on her bed and paced her room, contemplating the potential info she might find when she read her mother's words.

The inscription on the inside mentioned the journal's contents would be “illuminating” so Bryn couldn’t deny that their mother had intended for them to read these one day. She couldn’t understand why Mama had locked the journals away until now.

Sylvi had been a voiceless Queen in this kingdom.

The King had made it very clear to her that while she bore the title of Queen, she held no sway over him.

She’d had galder , as was expected; her flames supposedly burned as hot and wild as her husband and daughters, but she had never wielded it in front of them, just lit the occasional candle now and then.

Bryn thought back to how she had been seen as almost subservient to the King rather than a true equal in the court; she and Maude had thought she was weak for it as they grew older and understood their father’s cruelty more.

Perhaps, Bryn thought, their mother was playing a long game that required her to keep her head down, much like the game she was playing now with her father .

Her last entry also mentioned that she had worked hard to push Maude away from her fate, and that the gods were punishing her for it. This puzzled Bryn more than anything until she remembered a conversation she’d had with Maude when they were both still very young.

Maude had shown Bryn her fatemark and how extraordinary it was compared to some of the ones Maude had seen amongst the other girls living in the Palace. Maude’s mark was Yggdrasil , the usual mark for the elder child in their court, but hers had the wings of the Valkyrie, as well.

Bryn remembered feeling unnerved at the site, looking down at her vegvisir fatemark and wondering why her sisters had felt… odd to look at when her own had felt normal.

Bryn stopped pacing and put her hands on the wall, letting her head hang as she processed all the information she had just learned from a single entry of her mother’s diary.

She breathed deeply a few times, finding her calm in the tempestuous storm of her emotions, and focused her mind on the information she had.

Taking the approach of any general laying out their strategy, Bryn went through her memories of her mother, faded as they may be, to point out any strange behaviors or instances that might have stuck out.

She repeated the process with Maude, only remembering her fatemark and how she had snapped and escaped that day ten years ago.

She needed to find out why her mother had pushed Maude from her fate and why her mother felt her death was imminent before Bryn figured anything else out.

Letting out a long breath before she stood, Bryn made her way to her bed and grabbed the diary, curling up by the window that looked over Logi and settled down to read her mother’s deepest and most intimate thoughts.

What Bryn had not anticipated was that her entire perception of her mother would be shattered as soon as she started reading.